Mayonnaise’s texture inspires love and loathing. Either way, it’s perfect for physics experiments.
The classic condiment is useful for understanding how materials behave, not only when smeared on sandwiches or plopped in potato salads, but also when deployed in nuclear fusion experiments. Mechanical engineer Arindam Banerjee of Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pa., and colleagues are studying phenomena that occur in both mayonnaise and in fusion experiments.
Mayonnaise’s behavior sits on the border between elastic and plastic. If jiggled gently, it returns to its original shape. That’s elastic behavior. But fling it forcefully and it goes plastic, meaning it changes shape permanently or breaks apart.
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